


Epitaph

by rukafais



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: GUESS WHAT I'M SAD ABOUT THE DREAMERS TOO, Gen, WHY IS THIS GAME SO SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 02:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: Break the Seals. Bear the kingdom’s fate. Do what must be done.In apology, they listen for the words that only they will hear as they bring about the end.(We are sorry. We are sorry.Discarded child, you did not ask for this.)





	Epitaph

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from tumblr.
> 
> Alternate summary: "Nobody is happy with this."

The city is silent and still and only moved by the sound of falling water from a lake high above. They balance precariously in order to peer through the telescope.

They stand there for a long time, as if this unchanging view will give them a glimpse into the life of the bug who once lived here. They wander about the bedchamber, gazing at the paintings sitting unattended on the floor; some are unfinished, as if waiting for their creator to wake and complete them. Labors of love and effort. How long did they take?

(They are trying to hold it in their memory. Trying, struggling, to reconstruct what he might have been like, painting or watching the city through his telescope or huddled in that private room, writing his journals, that final pledge for eternal sleep. Trying to imagine the life left behind forever.

There is nobody else left to recall it.)

They have ignored the slumbering figure long enough. They climb the few, small steps to the bed and pause for a long moment.

_The dream is so bright._

_They feel small and untried and lost in it, as they did before, when they were cast away._

_Maybe they should be angrier about that, but they...they aren’t. In truth, they can’t bear to be._

_The walk to Lurien feels like forever, though it probably doesn’t take that long. But each step is reluctant and quiet, until they stand before him, and he simply hovers there._

_They listen to his words._

_For King beloved, bonds must remain. Sleep and serve and give your life for just a little more time, to save and preserve a kingdom now long dead._

_(They remember the hints of a life described in the clutter of paintings and telescopes and journals, small things that still persist. A history long, long gone.)_

They surface from the dream. Before they leave, they peer through the telescope, and they think they hear Lurien’s quiet sorrow in the back of their head, somewhere deep inside. They linger by the paintings, and they don’t know whether it’s their regret or his that they feel, knowing that they will never be completed, that there will never be more.

 _This city is still beautiful, is it not?_ he asks, and the mute child that now carries the ghost of him agrees, though sadly. It is still beautiful, even in its decay, even in its death, even in its fall. How wonderful it must have been, in its rise.

They doze on benches, when they can. On the edge of sleep, Lurien tells them stories about a city whose glory days they will never get to see, that will never come again. Notably, he omits anything about the Pale King, and they think that is his way of saying sorry to them for the burden. For the cost, the price paid.

\-------------------

The village is claustrophobic and terrifying, much like most of Deepnest. They are bound in spiderweb and tossed into a maze of cramped corridors; they crawl through, nail at the ready, numb to fear because they have experienced so much of it already that it has ceased to become a problem for the moment.

The passageways blur together into a mess of violence and scrambling, of frantically running and fighting and escaping. When they emerge in a chamber lit only by candlelight, it only throws them from one type of turmoil into another.

Another Dreamer. Another defenseless bug they have to kill. They try not to linger at the bedside, though they burn that into their memory too, as best they can. All of this - the winding maze, the hunters that cluster in Deepnest, the devout warriors still sworn to her - is her legacy.

And so too is-

_Herrah’s thoughts are of the child that she only ever briefly got to hold and see, and something inside them twists painfully._

_Give all for her, she murmurs, the last words she feels she needs to say. If they were a child predisposed to jealousy, perhaps they might be envious to know that she cares so much for a child (a daughter) that she only briefly got to meet, but_

_No, that would be unthinkable. All they can see is the painful rift it has caused, a wound only deepened by time and distance. A mother and child torn apart by the bargain that made the bond possible._

Hornet sits there and tells them that she must bear the weight, that her birth was a debt, that she is grateful for the life given to her. That even though she doesn’t know exactly what to feel, she still mourns that brief connection.

 _Leave me now,_ she says, and-

 _Her name was Hornet,_ Herrah says in an almost wondering tone, and they linger at Hornet’s side a moment longer. Just a little while more.

Lacking a voice, they cannot tell their half-sister, brave and strong, hardened and lonely, that she was loved, that to her mother her birth was precious, that her life and existence were worth all Herrah had to offer. That even now, and all through those years, she was - she is - beloved.

A parent’s love is something they can only witness from the outside, and never have for themselves. They hate their father too much to ever want it from him, and their mother is distant at best and entirely dismissive of the identity they have struggled and hacked away at the world to carve out for themselves at worst.

They think they feel Herrah’s approval at their survival as they stand triumphant over yet another foe. They don’t know why it soothes the pain of ending another life, given no choice but to, but something in them eases, just a little.

(The ghost of her remembers old songs, old melodies. Things she murmured once to her only child, long, long ago.

They are lulled into shallow sleep by those same lullabies, and they think they can feel the warmth of a mother’s love, if only for a brief time.

They are thankful.)

\---------

The last one is...

They don’t know if it’s the worst. But it certainly hurts more; they are not alone this time. Quirrel is the one who holds the key to his beloved teacher’s death, and he gives it up without hesitation.

Be brave, he tells them - he soothes them - and they don’t know if they deserve the comfort. They have never felt more alien, more separated from this kingdom and this history they creep through, than in this moment.

They don’t understand how or why he can be warm to something that brings such endings to someone he cherished.

_Monomon accepts her death, the extinguishing of the seals, with quiet dignity. In her they understand a little more why Quirrel is the way he is, how he must have been before._

__She asks for an end_. She is so tired. They reach out to her and give her a place to sleep, in the only way they can._

Their friend is so tired.  
  
He comforts them regardless, and says he needs to rest, now that the deed is done. Now that he has watched his teacher die, has provided this strange being with the ability to kill her.

They are so tired, and so they are entirely surprised, entirely caught off guard, when he soothes them once again. Soft and apologetic for the burdens they carry, for the hurts they push deep inside.

“It must be hard for you. For that, my small friend, I am sorry.”

They stare, uncomprehending, not understanding the kindness when they’ve done something terrible. But they stay and sit, a while longer, because Quirrel doesn’t tell them to leave. He simply accepts their presence, looks for it, though they don't know why.

He speaks of them so fondly. They look for it, even though it hurts, because it means more than they could ever express that he simply forgives them for what they had to do. (And perhaps he knew - about a door locked and an abyss turned into a graveyard, and in turn they forgive him. It is neither of their faults, not really, but both of them apologise for it anyway, because it needs to be said, needs to be expressed. Old wounds passed down over the course of countless years, now healing.)

If they don’t look, they can almost feel Monomon behind them, hovering somewhere distant, looking over her beloved archives and her most trusted apprentice. As long as they don’t turn around, she is there and perhaps things are a little better than they were.

(They continue to explore, to wander, to seek out new things.

 _You would have made a wonderful apprentice,_ she says at those times, her voice soft and sad and apologetic, because she _knows_ the cost and what it took to make their suffering sibling better than the others, and oh, it hurts to think of what might have been.

But it eases that aching inside them just a little more, to know she is sorry for the burden they bear.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Epitaph by rukafais](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16952427) by [Jay_Crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay_Crow/pseuds/Jay_Crow)




End file.
